


Fragments

by Eveningeyes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Drinking, F/M, Heavy Angst, Like the most angst I've ever written, POV Alternating, POV Ben Solo, POV Rey (Star Wars), Panic Attacks, Post TLJ, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Well hints of reverse anidala, reverse Anidala
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 18:49:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15612657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eveningeyes/pseuds/Eveningeyes
Summary: Though she shut the bond on Crait, fragments of him still came through. She saw his face on heads of strangers and she heard his voice in her ear during meetings.“Rey… Please… Come back to me…”





	Fragments

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This work contains material that may be triggering to those who suffer panic attacks, so if you are someone who doesn't like to read about characters having experiences similar to panic attacks, I wouldn't continue reading. Also, this work contains graphic violence so if that is also something you aren't interested in, kindly click away. Thank you for understanding!

Though she had shut their bond on Crait, he could feel her slip through every so often. It was terrible during the day. He would see her face in the crowds of soldiers, and would hear her voice in his ear during his speeches.

“Ben… come home… I’ll help you,” she whispered.

At night, however, she drove him mad. He could feel her fingertips hover above his skin, curling to the curves of his arms and sinking into his hair. It sent waves of hot blood over him. He remembered the look in her eyes in the elevator taking them to Snoke… how her breathing hitched the moment he muttered her name.. and how the sound of her reaction to him blazed heat throughout his body in a way he had never felt before. 

He thought of her words for hours and with her still in his thoughts, he finally fell asleep.

*

He had been here before. In fact, he had been here many times. The scene played in his mind endlessly, and each time she reached for the lightsaber he felt the pain as newly as the first time.

It was his dead master’s throne room, with the walls stripped of their scarlet curtains and Snoke’s severed corpse seeping at the foot of the throne. There she was, with her supple, bitten lips and sweaty, messy hair. Her hazel eyes were threatening to spill with tears, yet he had never been more enchanted by her.

“It’s time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels, let it all die. Rey, I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy!” he urged.

Her answer was always the same, yet this time something wasn’t quite right. Her words, though similar, were not what Rey had said, as if someone were retelling their story and there was a disconnect in the passing.

“You’re a good person Ben, don’t do this! You’re going down a path I can’t follow!” she pleaded, tears finally spilling over.

“No, no you’re still _holding on_! Let go!” he spat at her. He glimpsed into her eyes, now hesitant because of his raised voice and quick temper. He knew what was supposed to happen next. But instead of bringing up her parentage, he stared at her. “Why couldn’t I let go Rey?” He exhaled and brought his gaze to the floor as she blinked back at him. “I didn’t want to let you go. You were… are… everything to me.” He wasn’t expecting her to answer, but when the silence held out for too long, he glanced up to see that she wasn’t speaking, she was sputtering. Her hands were clawing at her neck as if she were trying to free herself from something. “Rey?” he croaked and as he stepped forward to help her, his eyes flickered down to see his own gloved hand raised and fingers curled in a familiar grip. He looked at her flustered and bewildered, unable to control his actions as his grip on her neck tightened.

“Ben. No, no,” she whispered in between struggled gasps of air.

“No! Rey!” he yelled franticly. “No, I don’t want to hurt you anymore!” Tears raced down his face as he watched Rey lose consciousness.

Finally, his hand relaxed and Rey's motionless body fell to the floor.

The last thing Ben heard was a voice that did not belong to Rey, yet was somehow familiar.

“Anakin you’re breaking my heart!” the soft, broken voice begged.

*

Ben woke up hysterical, sweaty and gripping the silk sheets of his bed to keep him from floating off into the ether. He felt like he was spinning, unable to distinguish reality from his dream. His eyes flickered around his room, reminding him of reality, of stability. Yet he still felt like screaming. Breathing hard and unevenly, he shut his eyes only to see the sight of Rey struggling to breathe. He waited for a voice to guide him, but found nothing. Snoke used to slither up against his vulnerabilities, amplify and manipulate them for his own use. But now, with no masters, Ben’s needs were allowed to roam free and grow. _Anakin?_ He thought, puzzled. In his stunned state, darkness found an opening into his thoughts.

 _You’ll never be worthy of her_ , it whispered. As his breathing steadied, he believed it.

* * *

Though she shut the bond on Crait, fragments of him still came through. She saw his face on heads of strangers and she heard his voice in her ear during meetings.

“Rey… Please… Come back to me…” he whispered.

Sometimes he is angry and he lashes out at her. Most times he is lonely, yearning for her. Oh, how she wished to hold him, to touch his scars and console his worried mind. To perhaps find out what his fingers felt like laced with hers, what his lips tasted like…

It was easier to shake the thoughts away during the daytime. The night, however, was not nearly as forgiving. When she faltered in sleep, he crept into her dreams. At first it was only a feeling… a recognition of his presence but as soon as she sunk further into slumber he emerged in greater detail and she remembered. She remembered how he looked at her like he was drowning but also finally able to breathe, and how that gaze of his electrified her body in ways she’d never felt before. 

One one particular night, when Rey only barely slipped into bed before exhaustion overcame her, she let him in.

*

She was in a familiar scene, one that played in her head over and over when she thought of him. They were in Snoke’s ruined throne room, littered with the slain bodies of his Pretorian guards, and flickers of burning scarlet fabric raining from the high ceilings. And of course, Ben, with his arm outstretched towards her and his eyes wet.

Like each time before, he told her to let old things die. This time, however, something was different. It didn’t take long for Rey to realize that Ben’s words were barely familiar, as if only resembling what he had said in the throne room. 

“I can become the Supreme Leader and together you and I can rule the galaxy! Make things the way we want them to be! Rey, I want you to join me.”

“Don’t do this, Ben. Please don’t go this way,” she pleaded like always.

“The Jedi turned against me, don’t you turn against me!” He raised his voice and quickly switched to coax out of her the truth about her parents.

It stung just as harshly as it did the first time, admitting who her parents were. Yet his eyes were as soft as she remembered.

“You have no place in this story. You come from nothing. You’re nothing,” he said, shaking his head slightly. She looked to the floor, while her heart flooded with shame and sorrow.

“But not to _me_. Join me,” he said, and Rey thought she saw his swollen lip quiver.

She waited for the word that hurt her the most. The plea that forever changed her feelings of him, and solidified her realization that his need for belonging was just as fervent as hers. She waited and prepared for him to ruin her. But he never said it. Instead, a single orange ember floated from the ceiling and gently landed on his cheek. When it settled onto his skin, Rey saw that it curled and seared into his cheek, yet he stared at her woefully, oblivious to the pain. 

“Ben?” she asked, stepping forward and as she tried to reach up to wipe the ember away, it morphed into a larger flame and to Rey’s horror, engulfed Ben’s face. Only then did he notice the pain and begin emitting the most haunting sound Rey had ever heard. The flames spread down his wide shoulders, and curled around his outstretched arm, melting the gloved hand that had been previously offering her the galaxy.

The throne room floor behind him disintegrated to a river of swirling orange and a heat that even the torrid sun of Jakku couldn’t quite compare. Now covered in flames, a man screamed in agony. This man, whose eyes glowed yellow and bored holes into her, was not quite her Ben, not quite Kylo either, but rather someone else entirely. She sank to her knees, reaching out towards him, streams of tears spilling over her face only to be evaporated by the heat of the magma that flowed past. His arms and legs were gone, turned to ash.

“I’m sorry!” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, Ben! I loved you!”

“ _I hate you!_ ” the blistered man roared at her.

*

She shot up in her bed, covered in sweat as pricks spread across her skin, pinching and burning her nerves. Clutching her chest, she reminded herself to breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to keep out the darkness as it slithered in her mind. _You can’t save him_ it whispered. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She needed fresh air, something new and far away from her bed, from her thoughts, from _him_.

She leapt from her bed and flew out of her quarters, hand on her heart as she headed for the balcony at the end of the suddenly-extensive hall. She finally burst from the doors and lunged into the night air, her breath jagged and her fingers encircling the railing of the balcony.

"Can’t sleep huh?” A man slurred behind her.

“Oh!” she choked, gripping the handrails tightly. The voice belonged to Poe, his eyes were glossy and he was clutching a bottle of Corellian whiskey.

“I can’t sleep much these days either.” He lifted the bottom of the bottle in her direction. She shook her head softly. He waited a moment, looking at her, but then dropped his gaze back to the bottle, studying the amber color trapped in glass.

“You know, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the last things you say to the people you care about. In wartime, you don’t have a lot of opportunities to make it meaningful.” He rubbed the bottle with his thumb. “It could be an order, a plea, a promise. You just never know when it’s gonna be the last time…I guess.”

Sadness washed over her as reality settled in and her breathing calmed. He stood from his seat and joined her at the railing.

“Oh, Leia. What a mess you’ve left for us,” he said to the sky and raised the bottle to his lips again. Catching her breath, Rey turned to him.

“Poe, she didn’t tell anyone. You couldn’t have known.”

“Maybe.” A couple strands of dark curly hair fell on his forehead as he repeated the words silently, his jaw shifting tensely.

A few moments passed as the two looked forward, the ocean planet’s moons’ reflections glimmering on the water’s surface.

“Rey?” Poe said, and she almost forgot that he was there.

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever had your heart broken?”

Her stomach heaved instinctively. She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth and pulled hard to distract from the swell of water in her eyes. She kept her gaze on the horizon in front of her. The five moons stared back, as if watching over her.

“Yes.”

“What was the last thing that they said to you?”

She bit her lip harder.

“Please,” she whispered. Poe lifted his eyebrow at her and offered the bottle once more. This time, she took it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I wanted to make a full on fic continuing this story but I could only really think of a few scenes... So... Have this angsty one shot instead :) I'm on Tumblr (same name) but I really talk about my fan fiction on eyesofemeraldgreen.tumblr.com which is dedicated to a different story so if you want to chat, hit me up there. Thank you again I hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> What inspired me this time:  
> Main inspiration is this BEAUTIFUL video by eggsywafflex on Tumblr called Star Wars/Jane Eyre Parallel: Rey hearing Ben’s voice in the force- Seriously go check it out!!
> 
> Songs:  
> Die 4 You-Perfume Genius  
> Someone New- Banks


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